Traditional nets are produced manually by operators at UAB Vonin Lithuania, a professional fishing equipment manufacturer, leading to musculoskeletal disorders. As the tasks could not be mechanised, the work was analysed to identify safe working techniques to reduce the loads on their body. As well...

This series of short informative case studies looks at a range of policy level initiatives across Europe and beyond aiming to prevent and manage work-related MSDs. The studies focus on achievements, factors contributing to their success and challenges encountered, and transferability to other...

This website offers free tools to assess the risks of physical work load and a 5-step approach to guide during the process of tackling the present issues.

ART is a risk assessment tool. This tool is most suited for tasks that: involve actions of the upper limbs; repeat every few minutes, or even more frequently; and occur for at least 1–2 hours per day or shift. ART tool is made up of three sections: the assessment guide; the risk factors and the...

On this website, several tools intended to help / guide companies to assess and prevent physical load. The tools presented are: Hand-arm vibration exposure calculator ; NIOSH method, factsheets on both physical load and sitting, and a tool on how to determine a policy on physical load.

The harvest and post-harvest handling of tomatoes is manual and labour intensive work. As this work involves a lot of repetitive movements, lifting, pushing and pulling, there is a substantial risk for developing musculoskeletal disorders.

In greenhouse horticulture, cultivation of strawberries is done on high racks, so-called gullies. The strawberry plants are at a height of 150-160 cm. To pull the blossoms through and clear out the plants, the workers usually walk on 30 cm high stilts. Because of the height and resulting insecurity...